A case of extortion: Geo Private Clients Cyber cover in action

30 October 2018

With over 4.7 million instances of fraud and cyber-crime in England and Wales alone the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) confirmed that cyber-crime is now the most common form crime in the UK.

You are 30x more likely to be robbed online than to be burgled at home

What is a cyber-crime?

The definition of a cyber-crime is broad but the most common causes are;

Unauthorised Access – meaning the gaining of access to your computer system by an unauthorised persons or persons

Computer virus /Malware – a malicious program that steals your information, shows you annoying ads or sends spam from your computer to others.

Scams – Email, SMS or Phone based scams that attempt to trick you into:

Wiring money to the wrong bank account

Giving up passwords for important sites

Divulging information (DoB, Address, etc) that can be used to take over your accounts

Scams are ever changing in the cyber-crime world, from conveyancing fraud to sex extortion the threats can be extremely stressful for individuals targeted, but they are often simply a hoax. The hoax email will be sent to hundreds of thousands of people claiming to e.g. have a recording of the person watching pornography. The email will threaten to send the damaging recording to friends and family unless a ransom is paid, often anywhere between £300-£5,000. The DynaRisk Pro facility in the Geo Private Clients Household policy is able to warn clients of scams like this more than a month before the authorities can and so is able to prevent clients from being exposed to these risks.

A case of extortion

Who

A high-profile individual, also the face of his company

The incident

He received an email from someone claiming to have stolen his password and was going to gain access to his accounts to commit a crime unless the individual cooperated

The insurance

The DynaRisk databases showed that the individual had been exposed in 4 data breaches and his password shared with criminals. The individual now knows which password was exposed and can take defensive measures, safe in the knowledge that the criminals threat cannot be acted upon.